Friday, April 9, 2010

I took a long walk the other day, middle of the day, during the worst traffic here. I don't normally do so but I had several things to do around town. Well, it reminded me of why I always avoided that before: I couldn't breathe! Nothing but car fumes gagging me, then I got light headed after breathing in constant diesel fumes for a mile (what was with all the trucks?). It's amazing how for such a small place, this town has all the traffic congestion and pollution problems you'd expect in a big city in NY.

Note to self: walk at night again, or walk in the woods instead, unless forced to spend time in the city during the day. Of importance also I noted some real (somewhat threatening) characters roaming the streets, none of them locals. We're definately attracting the wrong sorts from certain cities out of state. I suspect everyone locally knows the same thing.

Now, other things: my seeds are lazy this year. Absolutely lazy in growing. They're coming up but very, very slowly. Seems to me more should be up already. Well, whatever, I have a couple months before they need to go in the ground anyways. The trees outside are not being lazy but it may hurt them. This warm weather has gotten the trees coming back to life too early, so when we get a hard freeze like we should still get, it will be bad. I predict some bad crops of nuts and fruit this year, and a die off for the wildlife. I hope I'm wrong, but if not, you heard it here first.

I've been attempting to get some work (because obviously trapping isn't exactly bringing in big profits these days), a good paying job, ideally to have enough to pay cash for some land within a year and the permit crap to build. This is easier said than done. I applied for a job as a park ranger and it closed yesterday, but still no word. I've heard it can take a few weeks for them to score the applications, and even then, I may well be beat by someone who gets a score of 110 from a veterans preference. The wait is killing me. If I got it I'd have enough cash by September for everything. There's other things out there but honestly, working part time retail work isn't going to cut it, and is more likely to drive me to insanity than to success. I need something where I'm out of the city and away from crowds. Too bad there aren't many logging opportunities here that I can find. That would work well for me. I once wanted to teach but I'm convinced now I'm absolutely not teacher material.

The socialists have really screwed up the economy here, and of course, seem intent on spreading it over the rest of the country too. The biggest problem with this state is for too long we've allowed a bunch of elitist, marxist (yes, I'll use the dirty Vermont F word) flatlanders from NY, MA, CT and NJ and ex-hippies run this state after they escaped the sewers they created at home. We've allowed them to usurp our state and run it into the ground. I saw where there's a group of welfare entitlement activists encouraging the state to raise taxes even more rather than cut what they think they're entitled to. I wish I had commented on it when it came out because I can't find it anymore, but the local paper had an article on a lifelong welfare recipient who's organized others to fight to stay on government handouts for life. Now it's one thing to need help when things get bad, but to have no drive to do anything but collect handouts all your life? That's disturbing. The whole entitlement attitude in it just about put me into shock. It's frightening that this is what our country is turning into. And in this state too, it's hard to believe what was once the most conservative, hard working state has turned into this. The socialists/progressives have poisoned multiple generations with laziness and a hatred for work, religion, liberty and success.

The scariest part is I could actually see a person like that winning votes in Brattleboro and Burlington (can we please split those cities off from this state?). These people want the government running our lives, they want to manipulate us through "planning" and social engineering, treating us as guinea pigs in a big experiment. We need to rid our government of these sorts. Will people wake up this November and quit voting for these idiots or will our state and country just slowly collapse?

Sunday, April 4, 2010

The legislature's committee rejected several ballot measures that overwhelmingly passed on town meeting day. They would have instituted term limits and limited taxpayers' money going to pensions, etc., of public employees. Essentially it boiled down to this: a bunch of elitist, arrogant, power-thirsty career politicians (such as Rep. Howard, Alderwoman Davis, etc.), don't want we the people to be able to stop them from maintaining their iron grip on our state. These scum need to be reminded who's in charge. We need to, statewide, institute term limits, I think, to get rid of career politicians. I'm half tempted to run for office in response but I find politicians so distasteful and am a bit out of my comfort zone in large crowds, so I will have to give it more thought.

Genealogy can be fun: I did quite a bit of research some time ago and traced my father's family back to the 9th century in England (actually to a Dane in England, the Danes controlled much of England at the time). Doing more research, particularly on the people related through all the marriages with people outside the family, etc., has turned up several interesting items: in two different ways I'm distantly related to Thomas Jefferson (my favorite founding father and president), I'm related to Robert E. Lee, one of the men who died at the Alamo and his brother (also related obviously) died at the Goliad massacre. One relative was one of the first settlers of the town of Craftsbury, Vermont, another lead an important raid on some Indian raiders on a town in the early Colonial days in New England and won, one of my ancestors was tried for witchcraft in CT and was found not guilty, nearly every adult male member of my family alive at the time fought in the American Revolution, I'm related to a colonial governor of Maryland, and the first members of my family came over in the 1630's, followed in the decades after by many more cousins. There's still more to research but the records are incomplete for the remainder so I suspect little more will turn up. My mother's side is far more difficult to research but I am related to one of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention from a New England state, another served with General Washington as an assistant/aid, one was closely involved with Paul Revere and other Sons of Liberty. My mother's family can likewise be traced to the 1630's in America, but I have not researched all the marriages, etc., to see other connections and possibly earlier dates.

I've been giving thought, due to things going on with myself and my family, the picture nationally, financial reasons, etc., that I may give up on going to Alaska, at least in the near future. Which puts me on the land hunt and the hunt for a job to pay for said land. I'm thinking I'd be best off in the Northeast Kingdom for land, though the climate is a bit worse for growing certain fruit trees and nut trees than central Vermont. I've been after some park ranger jobs but so far have not heard anything back.

If anyone is interested in some land (19.99 acres with no property taxes or building permits required, about 160 miles from Fairbanks by road) in Alaska I may be open to selling it for what I've got into it (with the combined payments and downpayment I've paid, looking at about $3,000 or thereabouts) as downpayment then I could transfer the contract with the state to the buyer (I've already got the state's contract assignment/transfer form in case I find a buyer) and the buyer would have some pretty low minimum payments for another 8 years or less. Might help towards the downpayment on some land down here, I figure when I do move up there, there will be more land available. If it doesn't sell, I'll simply have that 20 acres waiting up there unused.

By the way, I apologize to any readers for requiring comments to be approved before posting (and I know I don't check often enough), but I've been getting so many spam comments (which I'm quite certain extend from my post on the Sea Shepherd terrorists, they're known for this juvenile type activity and I started getting blasted immediately after that). I simply had to do something to put a stop to the spam.